Frozen Grave
by Aublanc
Summary: Awakening only to find that no one could see him, Jack was devestated by the isolation and emptiness. However, immortal as he was, the pain wouldn't end. So he froze himself within his lake, finally achieving peace... until the Man in the Moon made him a Guardian centuries later.


Fill for the kink meme prompt:

_Okay, so we all know about Jack's 300 year old isolation from the other spirits. It would've taken a huge toll on him, and it's a miracle he is as he is in the movie after all that. What if, though, what if he broke earlier? Jack couldn't stand the isolation and being passed through as if he was nothing, but nothing he does eases the pain. So, in a fit of desperation and possibly insanity, he decides to freeze himself in ice. At least then, he gets some peace._  
_Then years and years later, MiM still appoints him as a Guardian._

* * *

The waters glittered obscenely. Holding its breath, still as a grave, the lake was a tomb. From its depth came ice, and from the ice came nothing. Always nothing. That which was swallowed never returned. It couldn't. Time ticking, forwards and forwards, was not a strong enough call. No screaming, louder and louder, could ever breach the dark and the cold.

There was no meaning in the empty womb of the lake. The child who returned prematurely -after having fallen from its nest in a broken, mangled, bloody heap- was devoid of life. Breathing, heart beating, and dead. For not every inhale and exhale represents being. The life in the water lacks desire and joy. But that artificial burial also ended pain and despair and anguish. The child was not lonely anymore. Not in the clutches of the blackest of blacks that even the brightest of lights could not truly penetrate. And that was all that mattered.

Fairytales of sleeping beauties are empty lies. This child consumed the poison willingly. There was no deception. No beguiling pulls on puppet strings. Simply a promise, all at once true and terribly wicked. It was the final solution, an offering of peace. It was a truce of a waving flag and motionless depths. The bitterest of pleasures was found in this salvation, sealed with a shallow smile. Where there were blind eyes, there was also a sacred fruit to lead the sheep astray. And consume the fruit the child did, and such a banishment it was.

Self exile can not be considered exile when there was never a home to begin with. Guards of the castle can decree all they want; they do not control anything. Countless seas away and every step closer, the child was a stranger in unwelcoming lands. No one wants that which they can not understand and that which offers them nothing. Maybe there was worth to be found in that one slumbering soul, but no longer would anyone know. Useless and entombed, it was just a body without a mind. Centuries of asphyxiating on water, of veins pumping ice and slush, rendered the child nothing more than a pitiful shell. Inside that corpse-like body, however, there was nothing to bemoan: for within, there was no loneliness. This existence of expanding death was glorious in its unfeeling, tender hold. It was a treasured elixir to cure the most tired of hearts and numb the greatest of afflictions.

Only when dancing moonbeams hit the surface of that loving lake did anyone remember the child who slept beneath its innocent blanket of snow. Guards came and called the child's name, the only thing every given to that wandering, worthless spirit. Led on by a creator and betrayer, the guards came to stand beside the strongest shield of nihilism.

"He's in there?"

There was shouting, and anger, and the seeds of guilt. Many had come to that grave before, but none before had shown up for the object of that long past funeral. There had been no mourners, none to remember. Not even now were there any who could say a eulogy for that child in the water, and these new witnesses came only with demands and expectations. They wandered out onto the perpetual ice, sweeping away the comforting curtain of frozen tears. And they stared. And stared. And guilt bloomed.

These newcomers, invading the bliss of nonexistence, fought the ice. They blamed it, cursed it, delivering upon it all their faults. The ascribing of sins is easier than fixing them. Days passed on that field of ice, futile forces trying to free the child within from that which he needed no liberation. Every wound made healed over, and the wind overhead screeched and howled and buffeted those who invaded. The guards were not rulers of that land of ice, and they were not welcomed, just as they themselves had not welcomed. And a faithful friend, never sleeping, guarded the dreams of the dreamless child. Selflessly it worked against the reunion it so desperately craved, because the child in the grave needed no friends. Not anymore.

When the prison refused to relinquish that which is embraced, and the sleeper denied awakening, it did not take long for the guards to tire. Guilt was not a strong motivator for the selfish. It burned within their breast, consuming and gnawing, but it only gave the strength to flee. Hiding eyes is not as hard as lending a hand. So they left that winter wonderland, vowing to the wilting moonbeams to return in the summer. They'd return when the sun had the strength to undo their mistakes and try and lighten that which couldn't be.

In that most pitch of blacks, however, there was a jaded king who did not need the false promises of light. Instead he slipped into the darkness under the ice, like a scuttling spider upon its gossamer web. Glowing amber eyes watched, beheld, softened. Ashen, trembling hands reached forwards. Though there was a weakness in body and spirit, as that frail hand reached closer there was also the strength of understanding. But the hand stopped before it touched unmoving flesh, hesitant, heartless, and unspeakably compassionate.

"They should just leave you here... Poor, pathetic child. Awakening you will only bring nightmares."

Slithering shadows sat within the lake for days, always hovering but never quite there. There was silence and the tattering threads of peace. For come summer and the sun, age old promises would be broken. But right then, as lungs filled with the same poisoned air, over and over in a mindless repetition, everything was okay. As eyes watched without judging, a second companion no more substantial than the wind, everything was okay.

When the ice finally broke, nothing would be okay.

The endless shadow eventually left, for once not desiring to have part in the great nightmare that was soon to come to fruition. Then unrepentant moonbeams once again fell upon the child's resting place. It was time for the beautiful dream to come to an end. This time, when the four came, the ice yielded. Each day they gained ground, ignoring the desperate, unconscious pleas of a broken spirit to leave things be. And finally, they reached the sleeper and ripped him from his only haven. The child stood no chance.

"Why isn't he doing anything? Is he dead?"

"No, look. He's still breathing. Jack. Jack! Can you hear me?"

"There's something seriously wrong with him. Maybe... we should have just left him in there."

And while no truer words have ever been spoken, blinding moonbeams cajoled and denied. The child was made with a purpose. He could not sleep. So even with the wind shrieking and crying and pleading and begging to not take the child away, the four took the ice from the lake. They didn't even watch as the grave fell in on itself, twisting and distorting and melting under the light of the sun. Instead they retreated, intent on making amends. They wanted to fix shattered ice that had already melted. It could not be restored.

Awareness came slowly to the child. For so long the cold had arrested his very thoughts, leaving him with no worries. But the cold retreated, taking without it his solace. It didn't take long for the screaming to start. Brilliant, unparalleled cries of despair became his night and his day and everything in between. Not even the most golden of sands could mend the dreamer's mind, for anything but the emptiness was bright and harsh and full of agony. All too soon it was realized that this was a mind too far gone. Even those things most coveted, having once been endlessly sought in vain, were now rendered repulsive. They had nothing to fix the brokenness. All that was left was heaps of broken glass to be swept away.

For over a century, that which should never have been made suffered. The child's mind had been suffocated by the lake, and its wounds had festered and rotted until nothing but amputation would save it and its wielder. Desperately the four had tried to save him. They really did. But he could not be, and all that was left was a nightmare that wouldn't cease.

So one hundred and eighteen years after the boy left the ice, he was returned. And never again did Jack Frost leave his frozen grave.


End file.
